Weddingbee Blog

A week already! Time really does fly when you’re getting married. So fast that I didn’t even get around to writing my “signing off” post. (BTW, big congrats to my wedding date twin, MRS. Cloud!)

I have looked forward to my wedding day for not only the past 11 months, but also my entire life. I was definitely that little girl who grew up dreaming of her perfect wedding day. Very few details in my actual planning process differed from what I had always imagined my wedding day would be as a little girl…

That is, with one big exception: the way I feel now that it’s over.

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You see, I wasn’t in love with my wedding.

I never once felt like a bride or really let loose and enjoyed my day. I was extremely stressed out, tired, and focused on not being a bridezilla to my friends, family, and vendors. And now every free moment of mine is spent obsessing over all the things that went wrong or what I could have done to prevent them from going wrong.

I know that a lot of people misuse terms like OCD, ADD, etc. to describe how they feel or act when it comes to all things wedding. But I truly believe I may be suffering from PWD: post wedding depression.

Before I go any further, I want to clarify something. I DID have bright moments throughout the day. Like watching Mr. Lab trying his damnedest to hold back tears when he saw me for the first time (only to fail miserably). Or listening to my pastor’s homily and feeling giddy as he announced me as Mr. Lab’s wife. And even the few minutes we spent alone eating dinner. I cherish those moments and am grateful that they are my favorite parts of the day. They should be my favorite because they are the most important. A wedding is about the marriage. I definitely don’t need to be reminded of that. And no one can expect a perfect day. I totally get that.

But that doesn’t excuse the fact that I poured my blood (literally, I cut my hand while working on one of our lantern centerpieces), sweat, tears, time, and money into 11 months of planning this wedding and had certain realistic expectations of not only the final product, but of the people involved, that were not met. And because of that, I spent most of my day focused on the wrong things no matter how much I tried not to worry about them. I would repeatedly be taken out of a promising moment because something went wrong or someone did something disappointing.

The full blow of my PWD didn’t hit until the night after our wedding. I know the impact was exaggerated due to our lack of a honeymoon. Having to leave our wedding city early and travel 4 hours back home to jump back into school and work really gave me time to absorb all our wedding’s shortcomings. I was ill because I had been running on empty for weeks and was laying in my bed when the tears finally came. I called for Mr. Lab and as soon as he entered the room, the dam burst.

I felt horrible as I described how I felt, thinking the whole time that I must sound like an ungrateful bitch for feeling that way. Many people had busted their asses and checkbooks to help us pull off this wedding and I didn’t want him to think I didn’t care about that, let alone make him think that what should have been the happiest day of our relationship thus far was a complete failure. I wanted him to know I was extremely excited that he was finally my husband, but still get across the need for me to get this soul-draining feeling out of me and into the open. There was no way I could go back to school and work (or even the hive) and “face the music” without addressing how I truly felt to someone first.

Just like a loving husband, he was extremely supportive. It was our first “test” as a married couple and I’m glad he was there to listen and just hold me as I cried.

I have since shared my feelings with a couple other people I’m close to, including my matron of honor. She actually confessed to me that she anticipated my phone call. She knew how much I had put into this wedding and was very aware of all the things that went awry (that’s probably because she was one of a just a handful of people working their asses off to make sure we had the best day possible).

To make matters worse, I feel as though the blows keep coming. I realized a couple days ago that our cake flavors were completely wrong. I didn’t catch it at the reception because I only tasted the cake quickly after the cake cutting. Then I went to get a slice of it at home and made the discovery that our two-tiered/two separate flavors-wedding cake was actually just a white cake all the way through. It’s as though every day brings another little disappointment instead of acceptance and a chance to move on.

I think the thing that upsets me the most is that I never really knew about the “realness” of PWD. I anticipated going into a bit of a funk after the wedding because I’d no longer have DIY projects or deadlines for vendor contacts or the excitement of a looming big day. But I never in a million years did I think I’d long to go back and opt for the simple courthouse wedding over ours. Let’s face it, PWD just really isn’t out in the open quite yet. No one wants to poop on your parade of sunshine and lollipops when you’re planning a wedding. And then people like me don’t want to admit how they really feel when asked that oft-dreaded little question: “How was the wedding?”

I’m just hoping that my PWD will help someone else out there, whether it be a newlywed or a bride-to-be. I’ll probably have a post or two that goes into a bit more detail on exactly what went wrong in the days leading up to our wedding and the actual day with tips on what I would have done differently to keep from feeling so helpless afterward (like putting my foot down and having things done OUR way). My hope is to get all of the negativity out so my recaps won’t be Debbie Downers because I know that years from now I will have worked though the way I feel about our wedding day.

Who knows, maybe because our wedding day was full of mini disasters, my marriage is destined for greatness? I’m off to watch a particular Sex and the City episode to remind me of that and maybe cheer me up a bit in the process.

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How are you/did you prepare for the fact that your wedding might not live up to your expectations?